How Social Media Make Cyberattacks Easier

11/7/2013 1:16AM

Cyberattacks are on the rise as people share and store more personal information online. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks with Hugh Thompson, chief security strategist at Blue Coat, about how people and businesses can protect themselves.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... the the ... cyber attacks are on the rise but just how much can you do to protect yourself I'm Deborah con joining me now is he Thomson chief security strategist probably can't get to see him I'd ever thanks for ... the day I was start with the new cloud technology BK is that we all use cloud now I knew matter a company you are personally Sanofi's cloud say ... that's a great question I noticed her face it even think about your personal life and how many of us have a Dropbox account are all glued on phone for the stuff on eclair ... and ... it's a tough question to say is it's a free online ... at the PC lot of variability in the class space ... for small and medium size businesses when they start to use the planned for the business ... in most cases and to get away after insecurity because they don't have dedicated security teams ... but the cloud providers did when you're a big business though it's a much tougher calculus ... it's hard to say from attackers but are u compliant stop all the regulatory privacy regulations that ... exist in Europe that exist in us that exist in Asia ... so it's a much tougher calculus ... but said the jury still at ... Deseo ideas that wasn't really reassuring on the somewhat reassuring ... so let's take a company like the last return on a ... day and what do we have to fear the dentist ... and so we're we're an interesting trend and barman is such a cybercriminals but its activist people that are using acting as a means of expression ... that we have to worry about and we also have to worry about ... nation state attackers ... so if you think about an organization like the Wall Street Journal one of the biggest challenges this ... week and the people in the company ... to cooperate ... with the security folks ... everybody now is the perimeter the organization ... we're seeing attacks comment ... that are so finely tuned and personalize ... Standard Fiddler show ... and they know what they've had for breakfast this morning is a song on their Twitter feed ... they know where they went to school this this on on line and in your seen these very well crafted personalized e mails and phone calls ... to get people to do things that are actually dangerous bring malware and the company so it's not necessarily any more about standard email Mr. Jan says Inker yellowfin million dollars it's now very silly saying that social media is actually eating the cyber attacks ... I really think it in this in a social media is an incredibly powerful tool right benefits to society unbelievable countless examples of that ... but ... there is a dance on it ... so people are more noble than distance to a stranger than they ever had been in the past ... if you wanted before a meeting with someone ... you could find analyst everything about that ... and the audience for that could be somebody who wants to attack the company to ... so it's an interesting double edge sword that was ... ok and so I guess that's why people come to pick the places like complete like your company at what can we do I'll what can companies do to protect themselves ... I think one thing that companies have to do is first to educate their workforce The and hope and understand what threats actually look like ... we see a lot of media headlines about ... malware and viruses but not a lot of people internalize what the experience dislike of having one of the scrutiny education is a piece ... and I think technology can really help technology ... it's it's it helps to inoculate the activities that folks are doing ... but also things to look at these advanced persistent threats are highly targeted attacks ... so this idea that will prevent as much as we can ... find also we're going to be a will to recover quickly if something happens ... and bad food Co were making a big dent in that area we think that ... the ability to go in forensic Lianne ... book and an incident that started curtain help to recover from a quickly ... this can be really important capabilities and saying it's the it's it's no longer have preventing only preventing the attacks but it's it's basically saying ok we've got to recover their Santa fat out there we know it's gonna happen absolutely and and ah now I feel a little bit more insecure about oh no I'm sorry I'm sorry that ... they say Amen to Johnson and prepare ... for a